The sport Scotland gave the world
On 1 March 1457, King James II of Scotland issued an Act of Parliament banning golf and football. The reason was blunt: men were neglecting their archery practice, which was essential for national defence. Scotland was in a perpetual state of tension with England, and the king needed his subjects ready to fight, not chasing a ball around a field.
The act read: "It is decreed and ordained that the Fute-ball and Golfe be utterly cryed downe, and not to be used." James was not alone in his frustration — his successors James III and James IV issued similar bans. James IV eventually gave up and took up golf himself, buying clubs and balls from a bowmaker in Perth. The royal accounts for 1502 record the king paying for "golf clubbes and balles."
The game James II tried to ban had been played in Scotland since at least the early 15th century, probably on the linksland — the sandy, grassy coastal strips between beaches and farmland. The Old Course at St Andrews, the most famous golf course in the world, developed on exactly this kind of terrain. Links golf is Scotland's gift to the sport: natural, windswept, and shaped by the landscape rather than by bulldozers.
Scotland's claim on golf is unassailable. The oldest surviving rules of golf were written in Edinburgh in 1744 by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, founded in 1754, became the worldwide governing body of the sport. The Open Championship, golf's oldest major, was first played at Prestwick in 1860. From the links of St Andrews, Royal Dornoch, Muirfield, and Carnoustie, Scotland shaped a sport now played by over 60 million people worldwide. James II's ban was perhaps the least effective piece of legislation in Scottish history.